UpRising  Yoga  Heroes:

UpRising Yoga could not exist without the Volunteer Yoga Teachers. Every week we are able to share the gift of yoga's healing and mindful meditation with incarcerated boys and girls, as well as adults in underserved communities. 

Jill Weiss Ippolito
Founder of URY , Board Member, and URY Teacher

Jill Weiss Ippolito is the Founder and Director of Yoga For Healing Trauma.  She has created YFHT to focus on Trauma Informed Yoga Life Skills for service providers and Trauma Informed Yoga Trainings outside the Los Angele area. In 2011, she founded UpRising Yoga (URY) and began teaching weekly yoga life skills in juvenile detention facilities.  URY expanded quickly to bring yoga classes to communities with no access to yoga.  URY now employs many yoga teachers and offers over 40 free yoga classes a month to diverse populations across Southern California.  Jill has educated hundreds of yoga instructors, childcare providers, mental health professionals, and educators through her International Trauma Informed Yoga Trainings. These trainings have become part of a mandatory curriculum for probation officers who work with incarcerated youth.  She has been on the forefront of the effort to change probation culture from punitive to restorative by being a vocal advocate to reform the juvenile justice system in California. ​
​www.yogaforhealingtrauma.com
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Dee Anna Pardo
Treasurer, Board Member, URY Teacher

Dee Anna connected with yoga over 12 years ago. Through practicing various styles of yoga including Vinyasa flow and Kundalini, she found a source of healing in her life as well as a deepening awareness of self. In 2014, she completed her 200-Hour certification at Shiva Yoga Peeth in Rishikesh, India. That year she also received certifications from Prison Yoga Project and UpRising Yoga to teach Yoga, Mindfulness, Meditation and Life Skills to incarcerated adults and youth as well as to at-risk communities. 
Dee Anna is passionate about working with this special population, sharing the gift of yoga and her journey of how yoga changed her life. Yoga is a source of balance, self-care and above all, an awareness to mind-body connection for her.
She infuses pranayama & meditation in her vinyasa flow classes. 
She is also a current UpRising Yoga Board Member.​
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De Jur Jones
URY Teacher

I found Yoga in 2001, after a major surgery. It was a practice that allowed me the freedom to heal with grace, grit, and integrity. In 2011, I began my teacher training at Bhakti Yoga Shala. I then went on to get my Yoga Therapy certificate from LMU with a focus on incarcerated youth and adults, seniors, marginalized, and underserved communities. I want to make sure that yoga is possible for everyone and every body so I work with many populations utilizing Yoga Therapy. ​

Pilar Calandra
URY Teacher

Pilar has been a student of yoga since 2005. She received her 200hr Yoga alliance teacher certification from Rising lotus Yoga. She teaches to bring people closer to their bodies and believes the practice of Yoga helps us become a source of peace, love, joy and inspiration that expands beyond our mats. She loves teaching with UpRising Yoga.​
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Ami Tsuji
URY Teacher

For me, Yoga is a sanctuary where I feel free from worries, opinions, insecurities and stress. It’s a space where I am free to feel, explore, accept and love myself. I have been studying yoga with Bryan Kest for over 12 years. He has taught me many lessons but the one I carry in my heart all the time is: “Yoga is the quality you carry in your mind while doing anything in your life.” This is the message I try to incorporate in my classes. Teaching is an opportunity to share what I like and what has helped me with people who are interested in it. I am very passionate about Uprising Yoga’s mission to bring Yoga to at-risk youth and underserved communities. My goal is to provide a safe, nurturing environment where we can challenge ourselves calmly, let go of old habits that are not serving us well, and make positive changes in our lives. I look forward to meeting you in class. ​

Sarit Z. Rogers
URY Teacher

Sarit Z. Rogers delved fully into her yoga practice after an injury, discovering that she was able to heal through deep, somatic, contemplative movement. What she didn’t expect but was inspired to experience was the ability to heal the emotional traumas that lay within. With over 20 years in recovery, Sarit appreciates the reparative nature of a consistent yoga practice in recovery. Yoga is like medicine – it is a modality that allows the practitioner to move through their difficulties with pause and sensitivity, applying what is necessary to heal the wounds within. Sarit teaches a trauma sensitive hatha-vinyasa flow, which encourages her students to begin to self-regulate, pause and reflect, and ultimately develop a practice of self-care.  
Sarit is also a Los Angeles based photographer, writer, and founder of the LoveMore Movement.  Sarit also teaches yoga to a wild bunch of teens and tweens at the City Charter School and City High School.
 
www.saritphotography.com
www.lovemoremovement.com
www.saritzrogers.com​
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Michelle Bui
URY Teacher

Michelle found yoga during a rough time in her life. A consistent practice allowed her to see life from an entirely new perspective, find stillness, be mindful, and let go of what wasn’t serving her. Yoga taught her much more than the unison of mind, body, and spirit, but about herself and the synchronicity among those around her. It has inspired her to love, truly live with intention, and be the highest version of herself on and off the mat. Michelle is passionate about people and finds happiness in inspiring others to open their hearts, find contentment, and reach beyond their perceived limitations.​

Katherine Bradshaw
URY Teacher

I’d love to tell you I found yoga after a corporate life or at the end of a long search for stress-relief and balance, but the truth is that yoga found me when I was 11 years old and I don’t know life without it. I wandered into a studio down my street and have been down-doggin’ since. At 17 I signed up for my first teacher training (at Santa Monica Yoga) during which I was introduced to therapeutic techniques like Yoga Nidra, Yin and Restorative. I felt renewed each and every time I stepped off my mat! Slowing down, taking time to notice my body, my feelings, my breath- I was changed; a seed of true peacefulness had been planted. Joyfully, I have been sharing the practice ever since with adults, teens and children all over Los Angeles.​
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Laura VanDenBergh
URY Teacher

I began yoga at 7 years old as a curious kid spying on my mom's practice. She quickly urged me to join in, and I practiced regularly throughout my adolescence. In my teen years, it helped me in my struggles with anxiety and depression. My passion to support women and teens in their own personal struggles with trauma led me to take my first teacher training at 19. Soon after that, I took a crisis intervention training and began volunteering at the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency. My time with SACA was powerful, and created in me a strong desire to continue in the direction of service. I have since trained with the Girls Empowerment Network in Austin, Rainbow Kids Yoga, AcroYoga Montreal, DONA International, Hospice, and Uprising Yoga. I have attended workshops to assist justice-involved families, and combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children. My classes, which blend many different styles of yoga, are body-positive and have a focus on the therapeutic aspect of physical practice and meditation.  www.lauravandenbergh.com​

Fitzjoy Hellin
URY Teacher

Fitzjoy Hellin has been a world traveling tour manager in the concert music industry for about 25 years.  After a back surgery in 2008, followed by a knee surgery, running and martial arts were no longer options for his daily exercise. In search for a new way to release stress and promote healing, Fitzjoy happened to come across a Bikram beginners yoga class. Upon completion of Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in 2012, Fitzjoy traveled to his hometown of Brussels, Belgium followed by some time in Monterrey, Mexico to gain experience in teaching and instructed non-stop while there. He is passionate about people and finds joy in assisting people in their journey towards better health.​

Ursula Williams
URY Teacher

That Mind-Body-Spirit connection is what drives Ursula's love for teaching yoga.  A personal practice is incredibly important, but Ursula equally loves the energy that's created when a group comes together and shares the magic.  After years of running in circles, climbing political & social ladders, Ursula crashed and began to rely on outside elements for stress-relief, inner-peace, and self-medication.  Reaching a breaking point, and realizing the need for something different - something real - Ursula gratefully discovered that yoga offered her serenity and emotional balance, as well as physical challenge and expression.  Ursula finds it a blessing to now live a life that is 100% present, and helping & encouraging others is what brings her ultimate joy.

Molly O'Leary
URY Teacher

I took my first yoga class about 20 years ago and I can't say
it was love at first sight.  But my teacher Brian Kest said,
“Keep coming back.”  And I did. Now I teach!
I received a teaching certificate from Bhakti Yoga Shala.  I am also a certified kundalini yoga teacher. I have taken James Fox prison yoga teacher training and the Uprising Yoga teacher training.
Part of being a teacher is learning, so I travel to India once a year and study under many different teachers (one is 104 yrs young). 
Service is part of my yoga practice, and I am thrilled to be a part of The Uprising Team because that's what we do.  We serve the communities that might not have access to yoga.
“Yoga is a gift no one can take from you.”

Pri Leite
URY Teacher

I was born and raised in Brazil, where I had my first contact with martial arts, yoga and dance. I was still a teenager when I taught myself how to seat in a lotus position by looking at pictures of ancient yogis and reading sacred texts. Pranayama and meditation found me before asanas. I started teaching in 2011after my first training at Bhakti Yoga Shala, followed by 500hrs YA at Rishikesh Yoga Peeth and continued education. My classes are breath focused and always tailored to the people in the room. I see yoga as precious instrument to uplift ourselves, each other, and the planet. ​

Chigusa Mares
URY Teacher

Chigusa has been practicing Yoga for almost ten years.   As her own practice grew from physical training to improving whole aspect of her life;  from self-care to self-confident, and be more compassion to others.  At age 50, Chigusa completed her 200 YTT under Tamal Dodge in November 2015.   Her style of teaching Vinyasa Yoga is to connect the theme of the class with clear alignment instruction thru slow movement.   ‘yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.’ ~ The Bhagavad Gita
She finds most gratitude when her students, friends, and co-workers realized that yoga is for everyone, and taking their own on the mat journey off the mat.​

Kelly Davis
URY Teacher

Inspired by the work she was doing in a UCLA research lab, Kelly was motivated to learn more about the beneficial effects of yoga in at-risk populations. After meeting Jill at a Prison Yoga Project training, Kelly moved to India, where she studied yoga therapy and got certified as a 500 hr RYT. Upon her return, Kelly jumped in, teaching yoga to recovering addicts and alcoholics, to a unit of incarcerated women at Twin Towers Correctional Facility, and with Uprising Yoga at Central Juvenile Hall as well as various community classes. Kelly is now a special education teacher with LAUSD, where she introduces the practice of yoga into her classroom on a daily basis. 
She also regularly teaches mindfulness with UpRising Yoga at Extera Public Schools, an after-school program in Boyle Heights. 
Kelly aims to share with her students the connection to calm within the chaos that she herself experiences through yoga. ​

Robin Lorenz

Robin is a Yoga Alliance Certified Teacher with additional certifications in Trauma-Informed (URY), Pre-Natal and Kids Yoga. Although Robin’s personal practice began when she was fourteen years old, her journey as a Yoga Instructor began in 2010. “I am naturally drawn to connect with others beyond the "surface stuff". Deep down we are all the same. We all have fears, but we all have so much love - which is much more powerful. Yoga and meditation have the ability to allow practitioners to open up and connect with themselves - and with others - on a very profound level. When you witness and experience the healing of yoga you can’t help but want to share this with others."

Robin currently teaches Yoga for P.E. at a local elementary school, teaches privately, volunteers for local organizations implementing yoga and meditation and is a proud URYoga Teacher!

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